Who would be interested in Luxembourgish? Luxembourgish is a Germanic language with many French words. The language has an official spelling (reformed in 1999), which is derived from German and French spelling, taking into account the different Luxembourgish vowels.
The language is not only spoken in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (the smallest and richest EU country), but in the Arlon region of Belgium, too. The dialects of the Moselle valleys in Germany and France are close relatives.

I'm afraid there are not many ressources for this language, and most are written in French, German or Luxembourgish.
But I could compile and translate almost everything you need to know about the basics of this language spoken by less than half a million people in Europe...

If you're interested, please tell me whether you'd like to participate in a Luxembourgish course, or whether you would prefer (translations of) references about the grammar, spelling and pronunciation.

Last edited by Saaropean on 2003-02-02, 13:26, edited 1 time in total.

Well, I`m too busy with other languages to start learning Luxembourgois, but I regularly listen to it! When I wake up very early here (at 6am) then our commercial TV channel RTL4 emits the news in Lëtzebuergisch (simply because their schedule didn`t start yet and because the station originates in Luxembourg).. After listening for a while I can understand about 70% of what`s said! With my german and french background it`s a very interesting language! But no, I won`t learn it.. I`m still too busy with Russian And then I want to learn Mandarin, which has a lot more speakers than Luxembourgois

Well..I might be interested in a Luxemburgisch course. Since a couple of months we receive tv channels from the digital ASTRA satellite, and one of the channels is the Luxemburgish music channel "Tango TV" (which, in my opinion, is the only reasonably good music channel that we can receive here. "Viva 2" ruled, but is dead now. ). Sometimes I hear the VJ's talk in Luxemburgish, and it can really irritate me sometimes that it resembles german so much, but that I still can't understand completely what is said..

But what exactly do you mean by 'participate in a Luxembourgish course'? Do a course, so that I can learn the language, or make one for others?

Saaropean wrote:I thought about trying to teach the language to others in our virtual school, similar to Pa-Integral's Catalan course and Daniel's Gaelic course.

Mmm..that would mean that the speed of the course would depend on the teacher, on how often (s)he'd post new lessons, and not on for example how quickly the learners would like to learn it.
And some learners learn quicker than others...

Axystos.

PS Is the Luxemburgish word order the same as the German one? It looks like it (in your first post) so that's why I'm asking.

I understand Luxembourgisch without to many problems, realy early in the morning, we can see Luxembourgian television. And I understand it quite good! The written part isn't also a problem.

I think none of the Dutch, Belgians and Germans has to many problems to understand Luxembourgian. At least, when you speak Dutch and German. I speak both languages, Luxembourgian is a mix of Dutch and German, I guess.

At least, Luxebourgian is not a langauge I want to learn. It's only spoken in Luxembourg. The country is even smaller than the Netherlands, it has the same size of the province "Drenthe" in the Netherlands. I can't use the language somewhere else outside Luxembourg. So I won't put any energy into a study. But I don't need, because I can understand a text. I can't speak it or write it, but I understand it.

Saaropean wrote:I thought about trying to teach the language to others in our virtual school, similar to Pa-Integral's Catalan course and Daniel's Gaelic course.

Mmm..that would mean that the speed of the course would depend on the teacher, on how often (s)he'd post new lessons, and not on for example how quickly the learners would like to learn it.And some learners learn quicker than others...

Yes, that might indeed a problem. That's why I basically see two ways of using our virtual school of languages:

1) Someone teaches a language from scratch, writing lessons and exercises for the very beginners. Different speeds are problematic, but possible if the teacher organizes it well.

2) Someone gives web sites that explain the grammar of the language as well as dictionaries. Then the learners can browse through that, write texts in the language and ask questions to other learners and/or the coordinator.

Up to you to decide...

Since Luxembourgish is so close to German and Dutch, the first option is not necessarily for speakers of those languages.But I don't want to exclude potential learners, just because they don't speak German or Dutch...

Axystos wrote:Is the Luxemburgish word order the same as the German one? It looks like it (in your first post) so that's why I'm asking.

Basically Luxembourgish is just a German dialect, so the grammar is pretty much the same. I can't think of any differences in word order, except in cases where you use a different formulation...

Ron wrote:Luxembourgian is a mix of Dutch and German, I guess.

No, that's not right. Let me show you a simplified family tree of the German languages:

So Luxembourgish is closer to Dutch than German is, but it's not a mixture. Luxembourgish is a Middle German dialect with lots of French words and less High German words than in other dialects. But that's because of the history of the country...

Daniel wrote:Letzeburgish! ...or Luxembourgish (both are correct)

Didn't I always write Luxembourgish?Letzeburgish looks terrible. First, the trema on the E is missing (which makes it look as if the E was not stressed), then you add the English ISH to the German BURG...

So I would write 卢森堡语 in Chinese, Luxemburgisch in German, luxembourgeois in French, Lëtzebuergesch in Lux. and Luxembourgish in English.

Ron wrote:It's only spoken in Luxembourg. The country is even smaller than the Netherlands, it has the same size of the province "Drenthe" in the Netherlands. I can't use the language somewhere else outside Luxembourg. So I won't put any energy into a study.

Of course you don't need the language. But who needs Gaelic, which is also taught in the virtual school of languages? It would be just for fun, and I offer this to anyone who's interested, even without prior knowledge of German (or Dutch).

Saaropean wrote:Yes, that might indeed a problem. That's why I basically see two ways of using our virtual school of languages:

1) Someone teaches a language from scratch, writing lessons and exercises for the very beginners. Different speeds are problematic, but possible if the teacher organizes it well.

2) Someone gives web sites that explain the grammar of the language as well as dictionaries. Then the learners can browse through that, write texts in the language and ask questions to other learners and/or the coordinator.

Up to you to decide...

Well..I'd vote for the second option. Especially since I already know the german wordorder, and so the Luxembourgish wordorder, too.
I think only learning the words and word-endings is what I'd have to do...right?

Axystos wrote:I think only learning the words and word-endings is what I'd have to do...right?

Not quite. Basically there are four kinds of words in Lux.: dialect words like eppes (something), French words like Pompjeeën (fire brigade, from "pompiers"), words of German origin like léieren (to learn, from "lernen") and German loan words like Fön (hairdrier).
So it's a little more complicated...

Especially commonly used words can be very different. And don't forget that many words come from French. When the Police /'pOlis/ comes to a Traffikaccident /'trafik aksi'dEnt/, that doesn't resemble German very much...

And there are at least two grammatical differences: The ommision of a final N before vowels and certain consonants, and the use of the definite article with a person's name.

I'd be interested in Luxembourgish,but not to learn it now...I already learn German and Norwegian, and i can even mix these two, i didn't start with dutch 'coz i was sure i'd mix it all up...I'd just be interested in having a look at the grammar, discuss something about the linguistic background, and nothing more by now..But I'd still visit a VLS thread...

I work with Germanic languages the same way I do with the Romance ones...I start with two, that I can learn from the basics (German and Norwegian - English has too much latin vocabulary, it indeed helps me more learning Italian and French than german and norwegian!) and after I get to an intermediary level (which is getting closer in German but still distant in Norwegian) I can choose another one (let's say, Dutch), 'coz I'll already be able to tell to which language a word belongs, i'll have learned most of the nouns, adjectives endings, the most common words, and I won't say things like..."Hvorfor haben Sie Deutsch gelernt?" (Everytime I can't remember a german word or don't remember it, I automatically use a Norwegian one, and vice-versa).

Learning Georgian, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Papiamentu from scratch. Trying to brush up my Norwegian up to an advanced level.

This morning, I've been to the language center of my university to find some books about Luxembourgish grammar (articles, pronouns etc.).
I've just started copying this information into a Luxembourgish grammar reference, similar to the one I wrote for German.

There's going to be one major difference between the Lux. and the German grammar reference: The German one was written trilingually for beginners. The one for Lux. will have three different versions: one for beginners (in English), one for French speakers (in French) and one for German speakers (in German), so people of different backgrounds (those who have a prior knowledge of German and those who don't) can learn something.

I'm not going to start a thread in the Virtual School of Languages before more people say they want it.
I prepared some first lessons for very beginners (who don't speak German), but no one seems to be interested yet...

Hey Saar, do you know where the word Foen (hairdryer) comes from ?
It's from the region where I live in France (Savoie) : un feun (Swiss also say un feun for a hairdryer). Originally, it is the wind which blows northwards in the mountains and as it comes from the South, it's quite mild, even warm... Nice word from our voisins luxembourgeois !

In German, both the hairdryer and the wind (which often occurs in southern Bavaria) are called Föhn. Fön was the old spelling for the hairdryer, which came from Foen (an AEG hairdryer from 1899, named after the wind). The pronunciation is always the same: /fø:n/.
Föhn comes from Middle High German foenne, Old High German phōnno, derived from Vulgar Latin faonius from Latin favonius = spring wind, originating in fovere = to heat.
sources: Duden - Deutsches Universalwörterbuch at www.xipolis.net and http://www.digischool.nl/du/lehrer/dms/ ... 9/foen.php

It's definitely not a Luxembourgish word, because "real Luxembourgish words" don't use the letter Ö or the /ø/ sound. It came directly from German, just as Staubsauger as a synonym for Stëbsmaschinn...

I hade read an article from the univercity of Vinna ,that say that
that Luxemburgish ,Dutch and English were the same lenguage in the
bigining ,and only start to spleet in the low lands ,influensed by
Celtic lenguages ,Frisk and Norsk in diferent levels ,and later after
allready splited ,they were influensed again ,by French (English and I think
allso Luxemburgish ,I cant find the article now ,so I write what I remember)
and Dutch by other Germanic lenguages ,and allso I heard a bit by
French and Spanish (the late one I could see the examples just by looking
at Dutch ) .

so Luxemburgish acording to them is not a mixture ,but the same lenguage
thta develop diferent than Dutch ,but it is not a German dialect ,it is a
Saxonian dialect , taked to Luxemburg by the English and the Saxons
in their way to England .
I saw in this article allos a map that shows the diferenses between those
lenguages ,and show some examples of the oldes versions of English
Luxemburgish and Dutch to compare between them and show how
close relative they are ,and they defenetly looked quite like the same
lenguage with little diferenses in the begining jodging from what I saw
there .
I`m not an expert on Luxemburgish (I didnt knew this lenguage exist
before I saw this article a year ago ) ,but those who writed this I guess
they know something .

Every thing I write, wrote, or will write, its in my own opinion, for I have no other.Release me from the duty of being polite and remind you, "I made use of my own brain".

NulNuk wrote:I hade read an article from the univercity of Vinna ,that say that that Luxemburgish ,Dutch and English were the same lenguage in the bigining ,and only start to spleet in the low lands ,influensed by Celtic lenguages ,

Obviously, these could not be missing. Probably there is Celtic influence even in African languages.

Because of the feedback I got in the UniLang forum, I decided to start this Luxembourgish course for people who speak German.If you don't speak German, but you want to learn Luxembourgish, don't hesitate to contact me, so I can open another thread and teach you Lux. from scratch.